2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB3745
HB3745 relaxes two emergency crime-victim-compensation conditions for a narrow category of claims involving a deceased victim and criminal conduct that resulted in a specified gubernatorial state-of-emergency proclamation.
Official caption: Relating to crime victims' compensation.
Official report lists House author(s): Manuel, Plesa, Simmons. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- HB3745 relaxes two emergency crime-victim-compensation conditions for a narrow category of claims involving a deceased victim and criminal conduct that resulted in a specified gubernatorial state-of-emergency proclamation.
- Normally, an emergency award requires that a final award appear likely and that the claimant or victim face undue hardship without immediate economic relief.
- Important limits remain: The attorney general still “may” make an award; payment is not automatic.
- The proclamation must be under the provision the bill names.
- The act took effect September 1, 2025.
What does it do?
HB3745 relaxes two emergency crime-victim-compensation conditions for a narrow category of claims involving a deceased victim and criminal conduct that resulted in a specified gubernatorial state-of-emergency proclamation. It also removes the general wording that an emergency award must be made before the attorney general acts on the compensation application. Final law.
Normally, an emergency award requires that a final award appear likely and that the claimant or victim face undue hardship without immediate economic relief. The emergency payment must ordinarily be deducted from the final award or repaid to the extent it exceeds the final award. For an application both related to a deceased victim and arising from criminally injurious conduct that resulted in a state of emergency under Government Code Section 433.001, HB3745 removes the likely-final-award condition and the deduction/repayment requirements in Article 56B.102(c).
Important limits remain. The attorney general still “may” make an award; payment is not automatic. The undue-hardship condition remains, as does the emergency-award ceiling of $1,500 in Article 56B.102(b). The bill does not remove every eligibility condition or compensation limit in the program. Complete emergency-award article.
The proclamation must be under the provision the bill names. Section 433.001 allows the governor, on application of a county or municipality’s chief executive or governing body, to proclaim an emergency and designate the area for the specified violence, danger-of-violence or disaster situations. Merely being a crime victim in a generally declared disaster area does not establish the bill’s two-part exception.
The act took effect September 1, 2025. It applies only to compensation for criminally injurious conduct occurring on or after that date. If any element of the underlying offense occurred before then, the old law continues to govern that compensation. The filing date alone does not bring an older crime within the new rule.
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill, House report, engrossed text, Senate report and enrolled operative provisions match. The amendment index reports no amendments. Both committees reported the bill without amendments, and no conference rewrite occurred.
The House passed it 123–22 with two present but not voting and the Senate passed it 28–3. The governor signed it June 20, 2025. Official history.
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
Qualifying claimants connected to a deceased victim may receive emergency help without first establishing that a final award is likely and without the specified deduction or repayment requirement. A claimant is a statutory category, not simply anyone affected by a tragedy; the program’s definitions include certain people paying a victim’s expenses, dependents and qualifying family or household members. Program definitions.
The compensation program may bear additional emergency-payment costs, including where a final award does not follow. The May 20 fiscal note expects no significant state or local fiscal impact and assumes any additional Crime Victims Compensation costs can be absorbed within existing resources. It does not promise an award to each family or estimate the payment for a particular event.
Review boundary: This describes the narrow emergency-award exception, not a finding that a specific incident received the required proclamation or that an applicant qualifies. The $1,500 emergency limit and hardship condition are not waived by this bill.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
